In general, the thing to keep in mind is that these are trained to auto complete text. So they're basically big artificial neural networks that get at what the next part of text might be. To auto complete a story, you have to have a good understanding of human motivations. That means this neural network that is trained on auto complete now needs to understand things like human motivations in order to do auto complete wealth.
They operate according to rules we can never fully understand. They can be unreliable, uncontrollable, and misaligned with human values. They're fast becoming as intelligent as humans--and they're exclusively in the hands of profit-seeking tech companies. "They," of course, are the latest versions of AI, which herald, according to neuroscientist and writer Erik Hoel, a species-level threat to humanity. Listen as he tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts why we need to treat AI as an existential threat.